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American Qivilization. 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED 



BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES 



West Virginia University, 



Hon. S. B. ELKINS, of New York. 



June Uth. 1888. 






PRESS OF STYLES & CASH, 77 EIGHTH AVE., N. Y. 



Z'>< 



2fEW YORK PUBL. LIBR, 
IN EXCHANQfi. 



4 



American Civilization. 



A FTER six thousand years of recorded effort, 
"civilization, in its journey with the sun," has 
encircled the orlobe. Its metes and bounds are 
fixed. The future holds for it no more territorial 
conquests. It cannot find relief, as in times past, 
from the dangers that grow with its growth and 
constantly threaten its existence, by the discovery of 
new worlds. In America, civilization, to insure its 
own progress and preservation, must meet these 
dangers and confront the oncoming problems face to 
face without chance of retreat. 

Fifty centuries ago, the restless Aryan parted 
company with his Mongolian neighbor under the 
shadow of the great Himalayas. Leading the course 
of empire, this heroic blood, conquering all before it, 
has gradually moved westward, until it has reached 
the last barrier, the Pacific Ocean. 

Over this wide stretch of waters the Occident 
salutes the Orient, the West clasps hands with the 
East, the New speaks to the Old. 

Western civilization, in marshalling its assets and 
recounting its triumphs, points with pride and en- 
thusiasm to its latest and most promising offspring, 
the United States, in its early infancy the richest 



country on the globe, leading the world in industrial 
progress, and all the things that make for the material 
comfort of man ; a nation of free people, happy and 
prosperous. 

The beautiful Orient, " land of the sun and ro- 
mance," source of philosophies and religions, the 
cradle of the race, having resisted alike the assaults 
of change and the ravages of time, rejoices in a civil- 
ization that holds over eight hundred million of 
peaceable, gentle and contented people, constituting 
more than half the world's population. 

Echoing through cycles of experience in the con- 
cerns of government and the tasks of humanity, may 
be heard voices from the far-off conservative East, 
speaking through her literature, philosophy and 
religion ; telling us that brute force is not power, 
materialism is not enduringf, mere knowledofe is not 
wisdom ; lessons that our newer and more aggres- 
sive civilization may well heed. 

Voltaire said, " The discovery of America is the 
greatest event which has ever taken place in this 
world of ours." It helped to save Western civiliza- 
tion from a long struggle and perhaps from follow- 
ing in the wake of the civilizations of Egypt, Greece 
and Rome. The progress of the best civilization 
has always been westward. It moved from Assyria, 
Phoenicia, and from the banks of the Nile to Greece 
and Rome, thence to Northern and Western Europe, 
centering in Paris and London. It has crossed the 
Atlantic, and unless there are changes not now ap- 



parent, it is destined to reach its largest development 
and highest perfection upon the American continent. 

American civilization is the heir of all the ages. 
It draws its forces from the whole mighty past. 
Appropriating and absorbing the best elements of 
Europe, possessing unrivaled physical and indus- 
trial advantages, it should be distinctive in character, 
aggressive and vigorous, enabled to understand and 
solve the problems which thus far have baffled society 
and overcome the dang-ers that have wrecked all 
former civilizations. 

Already Western civilization is divided into 
European and American civilization, between which 
there is a silent contest going on for supremacy in 
the affairs of the world. 

The progress of civilization in Europe is hindered 
by the burdens of military armaments, public debts, 
interest and taxation, together with the inability of 
the people in many of the States to produce from 
the soil what they consume, and the want of popular 
government. To-day, Europe, professing to be 
Christian, is a vast military camp. The tramp of 
soldiers is heard on every hand. Standing armies 
• on a scale the world has never seen, occupy most 
of the States ; armed with the most approved 
machinery for human slaughter, facing each other, 
and ready at a moment's notice to grapple in a 
deadly struggle ; all for no higher purpose than to 
satisfy dynastic ambitions. 

France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Belgium and 



Great Britain, furnish to their standing armies 
2,200,000 able-bodied men, who, instead of contri- 
buting to the production of wealth, cost each on 
an average, annually, about $225 to support, or in 
the aggregate about five hundred million dollars. 
1,224,000 men, or about one-eighteenth of the whole 
adult workers of France, Germany and England, are 
in their armies and taken from industrial pursuits. 

In 1880, the public debts of the leading countries 
of Europe amounted to about twenty thousand mil- 
lion dollars; the annual interest charge on which, 
at 3 per cent., amounts to six hundred million 
dollars ; much of which, however, bears interest at 4 
per cent. Eight thousand million of these debts, or 
about 40 per cent, thereof, was created in the fifteen 
years between 1865 and 1880. England and France, 
with an aggregate population only 25 per cent, 
greater than that of the United States, pay about four 
hundred million interest per annum on their public 
debts, and about three hundred and forty million for 
the support of their armies and navies, besides con- 
tributing 730,000 men to their standing armies. 
The States of Europe to-day are hopelessly mort- 
eaeed to the descendants of their present creditors. 
England does not produce enough from the soil to 
feed half her population. 

With this great drain on these countries and with 
these embarrassments, is there reasonable hope of 
European civilization making substantial progress } 
If European civilization is to prosper, large national 



debts must disappear ; able-bodied men must be taken 
from the armies and restored to industrial pursuits 
and the production of wealth ; classes and distinc- 
tions in society must pass away; labor must get a 
larger share of what it produces ; and, sooner or later, 
the people must have popular government. If, in the 
march of progress, European civilization shall reach 
this point, it will then, in many essential things, only 
be abreast of American civilization to-day. 

Will all this be done through peaceful means or 
through blood ? Will another French Revolution, 
as Carlyle predicted, be the dreadful instrumentality 
employed to accomplish this purpose ? 

Meantime, American civilization cannot standstill. 
It, too, must go forward on higher lines and nobler 
planes in the direction of humanity, morality and 
the brotherhood of man. Unsettled questions and 
pressing problems are the police of the world, al- 
ways on duty, giving nations no repose and bidding 
humanity move ever on. 

The physical position of the United States on 
the globe is commanding and important. Her terri- 
tory measures the width of a continent which is 
washed by two oceans. It lies on the great highway 
in the march of civilization from the East to the 
West ; in the charmed elimatic belt ; between those 
parallels of latitude which have produced the great- 
est men of all times ; within which the greatest transac- 
tions in human history have taken place, the greatest 
triumphs in art, literature and war occurred, and the 



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greatest peoples come and gone. It contains a 
population of more than 62,000,000 of free people, 
increasing at the rate of nearly 2,000,000 per an- 
num, the sun going down on 5,000 more people each 
day. It has 150,000 miles of railroad, 230,000 miles 
of telegraph lines, 25,000 miles of ocean and lake 
coast, 20,000 miles of navigable rivers, over and along 
which is carried and transacted trade and commerce 
which amounts to fifty thousand million dollars 
per annum. In- aid of industrial progress the people 
of the United States enjoy 250,000 inventions pro- 
tected by patents. The value of agricultural and 
manufactured products amounts annually to more 
than thirteen thousand million dollars. The an- 
nual gross receipts of one of their railway systems 
amount to more than the income of the oldest em- 
pire of the world, with four hundred million 
population. Government bonds sell at a preniiuni 
of 25 percent. The national treasury is overflowing, 
and Congress and the Executive are embarrassed 
by the increasing volume of the revenues. The num- 
ber of its standing army is only about 28,000 men, or 
one in 2,200 of population. Interest on the public 
debt amounts to about ninety-five million per an- 
num ; making the total expenses on account of the 
public debt, the army and navy only about one 
hundred and fifty million per annum. It is esti- 
mated that in another century the wealth of the 
United States will exceed that of Europe, and that 
their population will in two centuries reach more 



than five hundred million. While wages in Europe 
are only about one-third of those in the United States, 
the cost of living is only a trifle less ; some authorities 
claiming for the same kind of living the cost is about 
equal. It is estimated that the people of the United 
States consume three times as much per capita as 
the people of Europe. In other words, 60 million 
Americans consume as much as 180 million Europeans. 

The contrast in all these things between the 
United States and Europe is striking, and strikingly 
in favor of the United States. 

The social and political condition of the people 
is already in advance of that of any other people of 
the world. 

Mr. Matthew Arnold, in his article criticising 
civilization in the United States, says : " The politi- 
" cal and social problem does seem to be solved there 
"with remarkable success. '^'' ■^* * It is undeniable 
"that their institutions do work well and happily. 
u^' ^- -x- Y^ jj^ general, as to its own political and 
"social concerns, sees clear and thinks straight. * 
"* * For that immense class of people, the great 
" bulk of the community, the class of people whose in- 
" come is less than three or four hundred pounds a 
"year, things in America are favorable. It is easier 
"for them there than in the Old World to rise and 
"make their fortune. Things are favorable to them 
" in America. Society seems organized for their 
" special benefit." 

These are the words of a keen observer, a orreat 



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thinker, and a severe critic. What higher tribute could 
be paid to American civihzation than to say that 
society seems organized for the benefit of the bulk of 
the community. It is the glory of our political 
system that all power is in the people, that the 
Government exists for the whole body of the gov- 
erned, and that it will only fulfill its highest func- 
tions when it best promotes the welfare of all, and 
thus makes real a commonwealth. 

It must not be forgotten, however, that other 
civilizations, in their day and time, with much of the 
promise of American civilization, have come and gone. 

The salvation of European civilization has been 
due among other things to emigration and shifting of 
population. There is no such safety-valve for the 
United States ; it must face the difficulties and dangers, 
that beset it, and, if possible, conquer them on Ameri- 
can soil, amid a constant influx of population from 
other countries. 

The seeds of life and death seem to be planted in 
every organism. Civilization is no exception to this 
general rule ; it holds within itself the germs of its 
own destruction. 

The ideal civilization, which man hopes to attain, is 
that in which war will disappear and peace reign 
supreme, in which poverty, pauperism, crime, pestil- 
ence and disease will decrease, and human life will 
be prolonged. 

The nearer this ideal is approached, the faster 
population will multiply. Wise men tell us that 



1 1 



herein lurk the dangers which threaten an advancing' 
civiHzation ; that, as man multipHes, what is termed 
the struggle for existence increases and grows fiercer, 
causing a silent, though constant, cruel and relentless 
war between individuals in which the strong devours 
the weak, and the tendency of which is towards the 
destruction of society itself. Civilization, to insure 
its safety, must in some way limit and put under 
restraint the struggle for existence — must somehow 
modify and soften the forces of competition. 

This seems the end to be sought. Mr. Huxley 
says : " It is the true riddle of the Sphinx ; and 
" every nation that does not solve it will, sooner 
" or later, be devoured by the monster itself has 
" generated." 

Of the many serious problems before our nation,, 
two may be singled out for special emphasis : 

American civilization has forced upon it the race 
problem, always difficult and disturbing to the repose 
of nations. After much delay Chinese imigration has 
been stopped, and pauper immigration checked. Such 
measures are healthful and in the interest of security, 
they should be encouraged, until only the moral and 
industrious of other countries should be permitted to 
become the " guests of the Republic." 

The Negro race in the South numbers about seven 
million or more than twice our population when the 
Constitution was adopted. It has multiplied eight 
times in a century. If the same increase is maintained 
for another century, it will about equal in number the 



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present population of the United States. It is encour- 
aging that the negro is by nature peaceable, kind 
and religious, respectful towards authority, obedient to 
law, and purely American. The North has ten million 
foreigners. Voters born in Europe hold the balance 
of power between the two great political parties. The 
Negro race and the foreigners constitute more than 
one-fourth of our population. These elements must be 
harmoniously absorbed and assimilated, into the 
general body of composite American civilization. 

Though the race-question in the South led to the 
great civil war, it was not fully settled by it. The 
negro gained freedom, and was elevated from the 
degradation of being a mere chattel to the dignity 
of a citizen. This was a great change to be so sud- 
denly wrought in the history of a race of 4,000,000 
people. 

The great republic could make the slave free 
and its citizen, but could not, at the same time, arm 
him with the necessary intelligence and experience 
that would enable him to exercise the rights of a free- 
man and a citizen in a contest with his former mas- 
ter. This was not the fault of the government, it 
was the misfortune of the negro. 

The government did all it could to aid its newly- 
made citizen. in his helpless and almost hopeless condi- 
tion, The negro, heir to thousands of years of 
ignorance, savagery, and barbarism, the only civil- 
ization he ever knew finding him a slave, and his first 
duty to obey, was not prepared to exercise his political 



rights .against his former master, who was accustomed 
to control and govern, and was entrenched behind 
power, weakh, and education. The contest was 
unequal. There could be but one result. Ignorance 
and poverty had to go down before intelligence and 
wealth, as it has always done the world over. 

The general condition of affairs in the South, since 
the war, has been natural and logical. 

The M^ar left the two races in their changed condi- 
tions on the same soil, under the same skies, and in 
the same homes and places. Neither race could get 
relief by retiring. In these new and trying circum- 
stances, for which neither was prepared, in open an- 
tagonism, they were forced to begin the work of 
solving the race problem. History furnishes no par- 
allel to a situation so difficult for both sides. 

The black man deserved the profoundest sym- 
pathy — the white man consideration.- In the humilia- 
tion of defeat, loss of property, and everything he had 
fought for and held dear, the white man brooded over 
his losses. He determined that his humiliation 
should not be deepened by allowing his former slave 
to be his social and political equal, and aid in making 
laws for his government. He resisted by force in some 
cases ; by threats and indirection in others ; and often 
by State laws passed in his own interest. Federal 
laws were unavailing. Even where there was a Federal 
or State law that might favor the black man and was 
sustained by the courts, there was no public sentiment 
behind either that could enforce it. There is a whole 



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empire of questions in our domestic concerns that 
statute law cannot reach, and where natural laws are 
supreme and govern. In the fiercest civil war, in the 
lonor nitrht of battle and blood which hune over the 
land, when the liberty of the negro was in the 
balance, his conduct was marked by no act of violence 
or revenge, and he remained the true, tried, and 
trusted friend of his master and his family, who 
were fighting to hold him in slavery. There is 
nothing in all history equal to this example of affection, 
forbearance, and charity, on the part of a whole race. 
This splendid fact should stand out as a bond between 
the two races, and it is hoped, in time, will be a gentle 
memory that will draw them closer together. The 
two races have known each other for two hundred 
years. The South needs the black man. The white 
man in the South could not get on well without him. 
They understand each other, and generally agree on 
all but social and political questions. Already there 
is a better feeling between the races. The negro is 
making substantial progress in education and in the 
accumulation of property. 

The negro, not equal in intelligence and edu- 
cation to the white man, being constantly associated 
with him, looking to him for guidance in local con- 
cerns, seeing in him the model after which he is to 
shape his own advancement, generally obliged to rely 
upon him for employment and the means of gaining 
a subsistence — is it not natural, as time goes on, that 
he should be largely influenced by the white man, 
even in matters of political concern ? 



15 

There should be the same law over both South and 
North. Violation of the rights of citizenship, sup- 
pression of votes, frauds in elections, are dangerous 
to liberty and free government, and should be pun- 
ished everywhere. Any section that countenances 
and upholds these wrongs is its own worst enemy, and 
sooner or later retribution in some form will follow. 

In theory and practice, in the interest of the 
healthful progress and purity of free government, of 
its safety and preservation, every citizen should be 
protected in all his rights, should be allowed to vote 
as he desires, and his vote should be counted as cast. 
This cannot be denied. But to attempt to change the 
situation in the South by Federal law has not suc- 
ceeded ; to try to effect it in the interest of the black 
man by outside agitation has proven useless. So long 
as political parties are divided in the South on the 
lines they are, and the people, both black and white, 
are made to believe everything depends on the whites 
being in one party and the blacks in another ; so 
long as prejudice, passion, hate and revenge shall be 
encouraged by selfish leaders for their own aggrand- 
izement, the situation between the races in the South 
will remain unchanged. 

The true solution of this question will come when 
both races divide on economic and industrial issues 
and distribute themselves between the two ereat 
parties. The black man will then have the sympathy 
and support of his white neighbor and get all his 
rights under the law. 



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When hostile guns were trained upon the capitol 
of the republic, with his life threatened and in danger, 
Lincoln said to the Southern people : 

" We are not enemies, but friends. We must not 
be enemies," Later on, Grant said : " Let us have 
peace." At this great distance from the conflict, 
should not our wise men on both sides heed the 
voices of these immortals and echo their plea for 
peace. Prejudice, passion, hate and revenge cannot 
live forever — and no man should wish to keep them 
alive. Upon no such foundations can anything good 
or lasting in society or government be built. 

It is in the order of events in the path of certain 
destiny that the people of all sections through the 
whole country shall be friends. Then let us wisely 
anticipate the work of time, and of oblivion and the 
reconciliations of our children by a few years and be 
friends now. When the race question in the South 
shall be settled, and shall be no longer the foot-ball of 
poHtics, the Union will in the best sense, be restored. 
. The people of the whole country will enjoy that 
peace and repose that friendly feeling and good will 
for each other which are so necessary to the highest 
progress and the most permanent safety of the Union, 
and which they have not known for more than a 
quarter of a century. The passions born of the war, 
and often kept alive for selfish purposes will then be 
buried in the "sea thatgiveth not up its dead." 

Sectional differences and antagonisms — always a 
menace and danger to the Republic — will disappear, 



17 

and the words "Solid South" and "United North" 
will be known no more forever. 

If the South has a race problem forced upon it, the 
North Is concerned with the class problem which will 
press as severely for consideration. After the experi- 
ence of the past few years, the blindest optimist cannot 
fail to see that the industrial question is fairly raised. 

In the last dozen years, lessons of wisdom have 
been learned, in the United States, both by capitalists 
and wage-earners. The present agitation of the in- 
dustrial question is healthful. It argues, on the part of 
the people, a desire to go forward, an aspiration to rise 
higher. It is the yearning for independence and 
advancement on the part of the whole people which is 
yet to be the glory of American civilization. The 
prospect for our civilization would indeed be dark 
and forlorn if all energy, courage, and ambition to 
rise had gone out of the people. American civili- 
zation, notwitstanding its great promise, would then 
be on the eve of certain decline. 

Progress in civilization is not made or marked by 
the rise of only a part of society. The certain sign 
of progress is when the general level rises, when the 
condition of the whole body of society is improved, 
and when the life of the people at large is enobled. 

Of the various aspects of the Industrial Problem 
one is pre-eminently important. 

Carlyle said : "A man willing to work and unable 
to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's 
inequality exhibits under the sun." 



i8 

There is always employment for the person that 
knows how to do useful things and do them well. 

In 1880 there were 300,000 people in Massachu- 
setts that had no knowledge of any trade, art or pro- 
fession, by which they could earn a living. They did 
not know how to do things, and, therefore, even those 
who desired it, could not find employment. 

Mencius, the Chinese philosopher, who lived three 
hundred and twenty-five years before Christ, said : 
" Let the people be employed in a way to secure their 
happiness ; although wearied, they will not murmur." 

The State should not undertake to find employ- 
ment for its citizens, but it should afford them an 
opportunity to win at least manual training or an in- 
dustrial education, so that they may be aided in finding 
employment. 

As far back as 1700, the State of Connecticut 
passed a law requiring parents and guardians to bring 
up children to some lawful calling or employment, and 
fixing a penalty for failure to do so. In the "Frame 
of Government " drawn up by William Penn for his 
colony, on the Delaware, it was provided that ''all 
children of the ao^e of twelve were to be taught some 
useful trade." 

Generally, from the ranks of the unemployed are 
recruited the restless and vicious — the dangerous ele- 
ments to society and government. The strength and 
weakness of a government by the people — a pure de- 
mocracy — lie close together. Such a government is a 
delicate arrangement brought into existence by the 



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people for their convenience, and resting entirely 
upon their consent. 

This is the first real experiment of a government 
by universal consent known to history. The people are 
the source of all power. At any time a majority of the 
the people, not being satisfied, can recall the power they 
have conferred, withhold their consent, and then the 
government must die. The true office and function of 
popular government is to secure the welfare and con- 
tentment of the people — something more than the 
mere administration of law and the protection of the 
country from invasion. 

The people must be satisfied and contented, in 
order that society may be peaceful and government 
may be stable. Permanent discontent or degradation 
of the people will work the downfall of the Republic. 
Generally, a majority of the people will be satisfied 
and contented when they can find employment which 
brings as a reward the means of subsistence, food, 
clothing, shelter, and something for education. It is 
plain that whatever proper methods will enable the 
people to find employment should be adopted. The 
chief means to this end — the one nearest at hand — is 
the true education of the people. The people of the 
United States enjoy a great public system of education. 
It is yielding good results. It should, however, be 
broadened, so as to embrace manual training and 
industrial education, such as the States of Europe, 
particularly England, France, Germany, Austria, and 
Italy, are encouraging, to a degree never before known. 



!0 



Schools for teaching nearly all the trades, among them 
weaving, designing, dyeing, and dairy farming are being 
established and endowed by the government. 

In Berlin a central technical institution, costing 
about two million dollars, was recently built. 

Basle, in Switzerland, has established, at great cost,, 
schools for dyeing and designing, to aid the silk 
industry. The result is that silk is exported to Eng- 
land to such an extent that the silk Industry, in three 
important manufacturing centres of England, is de- 
creased to about one quarter. 

The town of Crefeld, Germany, in aid of educa- 
tion suited to Its industries, spent recently about one 
million dollars on Its lower schools, and on a spe- 
cial weaving school about two hundred thousand 
dollars. The result is, it has doubled Its population 
and quadrupled Its trade. 

In one of the great color works at Basle, the man- 
agement is under the direction of a highly-educated 
chemist. Under him there are three assistant chem- 
ists, each at the head of a department, and each 
having several other assistants. In these works there 
are ten well-equipped laboratories. In which are 
carried on daily investigations. In the same kind of 
works at Hochst, near Frankfort, there are employed 
fifty-one scientific chemists. New discoveries are 
being constantly made in all these laboratories. These 
are but a few of the many examples of the move- 
ment towards industrial and technical education in 
Europe. 



21 



Mr. Swire Smith estimates that Enofland loses 
trade worth, annually, from forty to fifty million 
pounds, for want of technical education ; because her 
people generally have not been taught how to design, 
to model, and to draw. One firm alone in Paris ex- 
pends $50,000 per annum on designing. England 
pays seventy-five million dollars per annum for for- 
eign butter and cheese, when it is claimed by one of her 
writers that she ought to be the paradise of farmers. 
In 1882 Germany sent England 400,000 tons of beet 
sugar, valued at fifty million dollars. The whole pro- 
cess of manufacturing beet sugar, from planting to the 
manufactured product itself, is under the supervision 
of scientists who have made the question in all its 
bearings a technical study. All this great effort in 
the direction of technical education and largre scientific 
research in the interest of industry, and which has 
already produced such good results, has had for its 
object the stimulation of trade and commerce. 

In the United States, encouragement should be given 
to establish industrial schools, foster technical educa- 
tion, and enlist the best scientific ability in behalf of 
industry for something better than the mere develop- 
ment of trade — that the people may find employment 
at remunerative wages and be contented. The age 
is industrial, commercial, and productive, and men 
and women should be prepared to live in it by being 
educated in a way that would fit them for such pursuits. 
M. Jules Ferry, late French Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion, recently said: "We desire to enoble manual 



22 

labor. * * * Social peace will find a place upon 
the seats of the elementary schools." 

Mental training alone is one sided. The brain, 
heart, and hand should be educated together to make 
a round, finished, and symmetrical character, a useful 
citizen of the great republic, and the future true 
American. 

The union of the education of the head, heart 
and hand will not only aid in settling vexed questions 
and bringing social repose ; it will develop better 
taste, culture, refinement, creating a larger demand 
for the things that make man comfortable and minister 
to his tastes and pleasures. It will enlarge the neces- 
sities of life, and stimulate consumption, which, in its 
turn, will create a demand for the use of more pro- 
ducts ; a demand for further employment on the part 
of the people. Thus education in its broadest and 
best sense not only elevates man, but aids in securing 
employment for the people. 

Sydney Smith said : " Humanity is a modern 
invention." It is modern, because, as civilization ad- 
vances, human life is held in higher regard and 
cherished as more sacred, man is elevated and mater- 
ial things dwarfed. 

As education increases and civilization advances, 
the luxuries of the present become the necessities of 
the succeeding age. The wage-earners of to-day enjoy 
conveniences and comforts in their daily life, such as 
princes and kings, with all their wealth, could not have 
purchased a century ago. 

LdFC. 



23 

The kindergarten, though imperfectly adopted in 
this country, is a new revelation. Such teachers and 
educators as Arnold, Pestalozzi and Froebel do not 
appear often, and their influence on mankind and 
civilization is greater, better, and more far-reaching 
than that of generals and statesmen. 

As a model for true and full education for 
Americans, Congress should establish and endow a 
National University. On this point Washington 
said : 

" That a National University in this country is a 
■" thing to be desired, has always been my decided 
" opinion, and the appropriation of grounds and funds 
" for it in the Federal City has long been contem- 
" plated." 

In it should be combined all the departments of 
the best universities of this country and Europe, and 
added to these there should be departments to teach 
everything bearing upon art and industry. This 
great institution should be made the source and well- 
spring of Americanism, a constant living and potent 
protest against the increasing Anglo-mania in the 
country, and the servile imitation of European man- 
ners and European thought. 

Other sciences are needed in American civilization, 
than the science of getting wealth — sciences affecting 
the industrial and social progress of American man- 
hood. 

Political economy rests on nothing higher than self- 
ishness in individuals and in nations. It takes no 



24 

account of humanity. In the getting of wealth, within 
certain restrictions, one may cause unhappiness, misery, 
and distress, and there is no remedy. It sanctions be- 
tween men and nations unrestricted competition, 
which is only refined barbarism, the enemy to the 
highest progress. It suggests no hint that the struggle 
for existence should be limited. 

Could there not also be the science of living 
correctly and attaining human happiness, which should 
teach thrift, care, economy, gentleness, forbearance, 
good manners, charity, and humanity, and, above all, 
the building of individual and national characters. 
Parents and teachers should be character-builders. 
Wealth and materialism pass away, character abides. 
All one can take hence is character. 

Enormous sums of money are paid out b)' the 
States and the general government to repress crime 
and to take care of criminals and paupers. If half 
this money should be spent In promoting a true and 
complete education of the people, crime and vice 
would largely disappear, society and the government 
would be more secure. 

In the United States there are i6 million church 
members, and 310,000 churches and Sunday-schools. 
If, in towns, cities and thickly populated portions of 
the country, each church should establish and maintain 
a kindergarten, or some other school for the free 
education and manual training of poor children, 
the churches would at once become the centres of a 
great educational movement throughout the land. 



25 

Christianity is the basis of American civilization 
and of our free p;overnment. The churches should 
have the largest share in preserving both. A 
Hindoo writer says : " The religion of Christ 
represents all that is noble in Western civilization, 
Western morality, science, or faith." If there is 
one place where people should meet as equals, where 
the dividing line between the rich and poor, the in- 
telligent and ignorant, the powerful and humble 
should entirely disappear, it is in a Christian church. 
In the United States, the church can largely aid in the 
direction of preventing classes and class distinction, so 
dangerous to the Republic. The church can be the 
strong fort, the great citadel, where equality can be 
best preserved. 

In American civilization, all hope depends upon 
lifting men higher, to broader and better planes of 
thought and action. Every endeavor should be put 
forth to train and elevate the individual. As the 
atoms are so will the whole be. 

Beyond the Race and Industrial problems, there 
are many serious questions for solution which can 
only be mentioned here. 

One of the hindrances to the progress of American 
civilization is intemperance, the spreading evils and 
demoralizing influences of which can hardly be ex- 
aggerated. 

There is spent annually in the United States nine 
hundred million dollars on intoxicating drinks — 
more than half the national debt — and more than is 



26 

spent for the meat and bread consumed by the people 
of the whole country. There are 250,000 drinking- 
saloons, 8,000 of which are in New York City alone. 
These are the nurseries of pauperism, vice, shame, 
misery and crime — the darkest spots on the sun of 
American civilization. 

In the interest of finding employment for home 
labor, each country, if it can, should produce what it 
consumes. 

The machine-usinor countries of the world number 
about three hundred million people, the hand-labor 
countries about one thousand million. 

The increasing use of machinery is rapidly chang- 
ing this relation. In time, through its general 
introduction, every country will largely produce what 
it consumes. 

This will shift power and population to those 
countries richest in natural resources. All countries 
are looking to home markets for the consumption 
of home products. Nearly two thousand years ago 
a Roman poet and farmer sang : 

"No keel shall cut the waves for foreign ware, 
For every soil shall every product bear." 

The tendency of ' overcrowded population is to- 
wards unrest and disorder, against peace and social 
repose. 

In New York there are one million people living 
in tenement houses. 

" Great cities are the. graves of the physique of 



» 



27 

our race ;" tombs that mark wasted nervous energy 
in the mad rush for wealth and social preferment. 
Children born and reared in lar^e cities are under a 
permanent disadvantage in the battle of life. Agri- 
culture furnishes the conservative force in American 
civilization, and largely the basis of stability in 
government. 

In the great city of New York the leaders in the 
professions, trade and commerce, for the most part, 
were country-bred boys. 

If American civilization is to insure its own pro- 
gress and preservation, it must rest upon moral and 
spiritual forces, and be molded and shaped by them. 
They constitute the surest foundations upon which 
to build an enduring civilization. 

Great cities, railroads, large trade and commerce 
accumulated wealth, huge machinery, vast industries, 
millionaires, all of which we have in generous abund- 
ance, though important in a way, are not inspiring ; 
they will all pass away, unless they rest upon something 
more enduring than their own materialism. 

In material affairs the progress of science teaches 
us that " to-day's knowledge may be to-morrow's 
ignorance," but moral truths, spiritual facts, are parts 
of eternity, fixed, unchangeable, and live on forever. 

In the parable of old there is taught, for all the 
ages, a beautiful and sublime lesson : 

" And behold the Lord passed by and a great and 
" strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces 
" the rocks, before the Lord : but the Lord was not in 



28 

" the wind. And after the wind an earthquake : but 
" the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the 
" earthquake a fire : but the Lord was not in the fire. 
" And after the fire a still, small voice." 

In the dawn of civilization, man relied upon 
physical forces and trusted in material advantages. 
He saw God in the powers of nature. We have 
advanced far enough, however, to know that moral 
and spiritual forces are the most powerful. Emerson 
says: "'Tis a sentence of ancient wisdom, that God 
hangs the greatest weights on the smallest wires." 

There are reasons to believe that Western Civil- 
ization is nearing some great social change, pointing 
in the direction of the elevation of the people through 
education, the practice of virtue, a broader humanity, 
and a recognition of the doctrine of the brotherhood 
of man. 

" The old order changeth giving place to new 
And God fulfills himself in many ways." 

This change must and will come. It should come. 
The eternal principles of justice and equity fight for 
it. Civilization will have no repose, governments no 
certain security until it does come. All who love their 
fellow-men will welcome it ; all who want justice done 
between man and man will aid in bringing it about. 

Everything points to America as the land where 
this great change is to take place. American civiliza- 
tion is the hope of the world. It stands, to-day, the 
best equipped to take this important step and lead the 
world in this critical change, and let us hope it will 



29 

prove a peaceful and bloodless revolution. It would 
seem on our shores the final battle predicted by the 
ancient prophets is to occur, the last long strife be- 
tween the powers of Light and Darkness, which have 
been wrestling together throughout human history. 
When night falls upon that mystic battle-field heard 
will be the voices which through the lips of seers and 
sages have been so long vainly searching for the 
heart of man. 

The people will then know that truth, love, virtue, 
and the things that make for peace abide ; that wis- 
dom, gentleness, charity, and humanity are the fruits 
of the best culture, that matter is but the shadow of 
the spirit; "that the good is the absolute;" the 
unseen is the real ; the invisible, the substantial, that 
passeth not away. 




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